The Cyclocross Workout Of The Day for Wednesday, 12.4.13. “Rolling Downhill”

Howdy folks,

Well, it’s Wednesday, but no Skills workout today.

If you’re a Seattle local, I can’t very well tell you to do skills when we’ve canned the Marymoor workout, now can I?

If you feel like doing some skills work, head on down to the search function on the bottom right hand side of the page, enter “Wednesday.”

You’ll find a whole bunch of content to work with.

If, however, you found yourself really struggling with something skill related in your last race, it might not be a bad idea to do a little skills session.
Y’know, brush up on the little things that you had trouble with.

The default workout today, though is a…

2 Hour Moderate Ride –

Get on your bike.

Go ride for 2 hours.

No hard efforts, but do throw in a couple of moderate ones.

By moderate, I mean just that. You can sprint for the town line, but you should be laughing while you do it.

You’re not doing a recovery spin, so you need to put a little bit of gas into the pedals… just don’t go out and kill yourself.

Check out the view, smell the flowers…

…just do it while you’re putting a little bit of effort into the pedals.

1 notch above a recovery ride.

If you’re feeling pretty spry today, would like to get a little bit more intensity in, or if you’re racing this weekend, you might want to do something a little bit more intense.

How about some speed work?

Everything’s Going Downhill Fast!

Start by warming up well, a bit longer than usual – 30 minutes or so.

Find a gradual downhill that lets out on a flat section of road or trail. The ideal setup for this workout is a downhill that’s about a block long that turns into a flat section of road another block or so in length.

Extra bonus points if you can loop back to the start without having to turn around – that would be perfect.

You’re going to do 3-5 sets of 5 sprints, full gas. Here’s how the sprints go:

Roll down the gradual descent in a comfortable gear. You want to hit the bottom of the hill going fast, but not yet in a sprint.

As soon as you hit the flat section at the bottom of the hill, get out of the saddle and give it full gas.

Sit back down as you get up to full speed, and try to go even faster.

Go until you are spun out.

Spun out means that your legs can’t go any faster, your form goes completely to hell, or you start bobbing up and down on the saddle a lot.

Ideally, a little bit of all of those things.

Remember, we’re working on leg speed today, so really focus on turning your legs over. The goal isn’t to make the bike go fast, the goal is to make your legs go fast.

There’s a difference, eh? Try to keep it in mind, ok?

ANYways, That’s one rep. You’re doing sets of 5.

Ouch.

Each sprint should take just a few seconds. Recover for 30 seconds to a minute between them, and 5 minutes between sets.

Stop when you hit 5 sets or just aren’t getting the same leg speed you were on the first couple of reps.

When you’re done, spin out your legs and go home.

Tips –

– You should start the sprint in a pretty big gear, and spin it out. How big? It depends on how fast you’re going and how strong you are. You’re working on speed here, so don’t try to lug a giant gear, but the gear needs to be big enough that you accelerate when you hit it at the end of the downhill.

– Important, let me reiterate: stand up out of the saddle when you start to sprint, and gradually sit down as you begin to spin up into your sprint.

– Don’t forget to breathe. Seriously. Too many people hold their breath when they sprint. Don’t be one of them.

Stuff...

Personal Coaching?

You betcha. I do the personal coaching/trainer thing. Clients have included multiple National and even World Champions, and 2/3 of My Cyclocross athletes made the podium at Nationals in 2009, with one taking home the Stars and Stripes. Interested? Drop me a line at: crosssports@gmail.com

RSS me, ya’all…

Holy Crap! CrossSports schwag!

Yeah, that's right... if you have completely lost control of all sense of fiscal responsibility, you can now purchase silly articles of clothing with my blog address on them.
How cool is that?
Just go to - http://crosssports.spreadshirt.com/
and think "conspicuous consumption... mmm... feels so good..."